Cowtastrophe
by Infinity Plus One
Summary: Please don't tip cows. Mia might die, and then who knows what'll happen?
1. Prologue

**Cowtastrophe**

Prologue

Please don't tip cows. You could end up the defendant in a lawsuit, get impaled by a pitchfork-wielding farmer… or inadvertently kill your fiancée and start an interdimensional war with beings from beyond space and time. But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you _this_ story.

[Disclaimer: The following is an exceedingly sarcastic rehashing of the Golden Sun games, which helps set the tone for the story. Readers who may be offended by lampooning of the blatant deus ex machinas and absurdities of the series may skip this section if they wish. I do not apologize, though I personally love Golden Sun; as with any abusive relationship, I feel free to fling insults at the series until it begins to question its self-worth and possibly develops a chemical dependency. Enjoy.

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Once upon a time, there were eight teenagers who lived ordinary lives. As with most youths, their time was spent drinking liquor and groping one another, among other typical adolescent pastimes. Four of these eight lived in the same village, and hence were the only four who knew one another – this was before the internet, mind you, and the common man was too busy abusing livestock or being burnt at the stake to invent it. Anyhow, one dark and stormy night, the village was invaded by a raiding party of barbarians from the north. Despite their bizarre names and the fact that they physically resembled clowns whose makeup had begun to smear, apparently nobody recognized them as potentially dangerous until they had already plundered the ancient sanctum that the village was supposed to protect. In true ancient-temple form, the sanctum spat out the clichéd giant boulder, which splattered all but two of the northern clowns, and then proceeded to kill one of the teens along with his family. So sad.

For the next three years, the surviving northern barbarians hung out among the village population, all of whom were far too multicultural and sensitive to blame the clowns for their act of terrorism. Then, one fine autumn day, one of the teens ate a delicious, bright-colored mushroom and had a wonderful idea – she'd enter the forbidden sanctum herself! Yes, the sanctum that had killed her brother _and_ which the village was charged with guarding for all time! She could even bring along two of her buddies and possibly a creepy old geezer who'd divide his time between being stumped by childishly easy puzzles and trying to steal glances up her skirt! And thus, the group set off, sneaking past the single dim-witted guard posted at the sanctum entrance. Apparently, the events of three years ago hadn't taught the village the importance of proper homeland security.

After traversing the sanctum's interior, most of which was taken up by ugly statues and puzzles that a reasonably bright Labrador could solve, the teens and the geezer reached the standard mystical-artifact-storage room mandated since 1998 by the Senate Committee on Dungeon Design, wherein they found four artifacts that could unleash the power of Alchemy into the world. These were the same artifacts which the clowns had failed to acquire three years ago, thus establishing them solidly below Labradors in terms of intellect. Sadly, our shroom-munching heroes weren't that much brighter, since the two surviving clowns were able to follow them to the central chamber, kidnap the girl and the geezer, steal three of the artifacts _and_ set off a volcanic eruption. Evil may be cliché, but it's never dull.

Oh, and her brother turned out to be alive and thoroughly brainwashed by the clowns. Dunno how that happened.

Anyhow, the two remaining teens escaped the sanctum with a fair bit of deus ex machina, and instead of beating their asses, the village elders concocted a much craftier plan. Rather than chuck the remaining artifact into the volcano – presumably foiling the villains' plans – they would send the two boys out into the world, under the guise of a heroic quest! Remember, in these days the world at large was prowled by bandits and psychopaths, and most travelers found themselves being mugged, raped and eaten, sometimes all at the same time. As for the artifact itself, the elders figured that sooner or later the boys would pawn it for drinking money, and it would get lost under someone's couch cushions, never to be seen again. Thus it was that the two teens were sent off on their epic quest to rescue the world from its inevitable doom…

The first town they stopped at was a tiny hamlet whose economy consisted mainly of stealing things and hiding them in attics. Within five minutes, the boys had refined the process by stealing things and _taking them with them_, searching every jar and crate in the city for a few coins or an herb while the villagers stood by, marveling at their ingenuity. The omission of the attic step led to a remarkable 10 jump in the village's GDP, until someone finally figured out that stealing each other's things wasn't really contributing to the wealth of the village – what they really needed to do was steal _other villages'_ stuff. That proved to be too much effort, so eventually they just hired some creative accountants and watched as their profits soared. Of course, by this time, the two boys had long departed, taking with them a blond midget whose ancient artifact they'd recovered from someone's attic. With nothing better to do, he decided to travel with them until such time as they ran out of food or got exceptionally lonely.

And so they had many exciting adventures, mostly revolving around a talking tree with a decidedly Marxist-environmentalist political stance and the power to curse stuff. For some reason, they decided to head north despite the imminent winter, and so they froze to death and were eaten by bears.

Just kidding. Bears hibernate during the winter. Dumbass.

The three arrived at a small town in the frozen northlands, which was apparently built by complete numbskulls, considering that it was at least fifty miles and a dungeon away from the rest of civilization and had no natural resources to speak of. Noticing a large, phallic building nearby, the party quickly agreed to two binding resolutions: that they had become "a total sausage fest," and that they "need some babes around here." One of the group members made a motion that the blond midget by reclassified as female, but he was voted down with a counter-motion of "you homo."

Fortunately for them, they soon encountered a female healer with a connection to the phallic building, and driven by lust for whatever was under those robes, followed her inside it. On the journey to the peak, the boys proceeded to annoy the piss out of her with incessant dick jokes and constant attempts to look up her skirt on staircases. At the top, they discovered that – what a surprise – this was one of the four lighthouses where the bizarre clowns hoped to use their artifacts to unseal Alchemy! After a brief battle, their antagonists fled thanks to the trickery of a blue-haired man who happened to be a former fuck-buddy of the healer, taking with them the kidnapped and brainwashed villagers. Returning to the nearby town to whine about the succession of failures that comprised their existence, they were astonished to hear that the girl was willing to join them on their quest, having nothing better to do with her life. Erections and discreet high-fives were all around the table.

After a long and uneventful journey through an oriental land chock-full of kung-fu and offensive stereotypes, the group reached a small inland sea in their path. Sadly for them, the path around the sea was blocked by a landslide almost three feet tall… and they'd just eaten lunch… and they'd left all their mountaineering gear in their other armor. Whatever the excuses, they decided instead to take a ship across the sea, and were repeatedly ambushed by sea monsters, each of which killed and/or ate exactly one oarsman, in strict compliance with new hunting laws. After dispatching the sea monsters, which included a kraken and its accompanying Japanese film crew, they arrived at the port of a massive imperialist superpower, which was roughly the size of every little town they'd visited thus far. However, it also had an enormous coliseum where warriors from across the world gathered to kick the crap out of each other for the crowd's amusement, as well as an imprisoned blond midget who the crowd sometimes got to feed garbage to. For reasons that I'm sure made perfect sense, the alleged heroes decided to help find the missing tyrant of the city.

And find him they did, collapsed (invisible, mind you) inside a cave filled with monsters, all of whom apparently had a poor sense of smell, seeing as he had developed a powerful scent over the days he'd spent lying in his own filth. You'd think that even if they didn't want to eat him, they'd have made an effort to say hi. Monsters can be so… monstrous sometimes. Anyhow, the group made its way to the bottom of the cave, where they broke into an ancient pharmacy and retrieved a bottle filled with a miraculous fluid that instantly restored youth and vigor to old men lying in their own filth. After rejuvenating the tyrant, the party returned to the imperialistic superpower and were handsomely rewarded with the opportunity to be killed in public during the coliseum games. Sadly for the crowd, the teens had other plans and cheated copiously, easily winning the games and becoming famous heroes… who shopkeepers refused to give even a tiny discount to.

For some odd reason, possibly the promise of free beer, our heroes agreed to find the lost land of Lemuria, on whose late-night infomercials the tyrant had seen advertisements for his rejuvenating beverage. So they traveled south, following a party of guards who were taking the imprisoned midget out for a walk in order to inspire the people of a conquered midget-worshipping town to build a large, phallic building for the tyrant. Viagra was not yet available outside Lemuria; he had to make do with the next best thing. Anyway, the guards, being incompetent, were quickly ambushed by the clowns, and the midget was kidnapped… again. After crossing the desert and reaching the midget-worshipping town, the heroes entered the partially-constructed phallic building and took an underground tunnel to yet another phallic building… which, whaddaya know, turned out to be another lighthouse.

Atop the lighthouse, the heroes battled the clowns once more after a long and pointless conversation, soundly kicking their asses. Perhaps taking pity on their adversaries – after all, the unbalanced battle system lent itself to the spamming of summons in such a way as to make combat ridiculously easy – the party let them live. This proved to be a mistake, as the villains proceeded to light the lighthouse – who would've guessed? – and then transform into a two-headed dragon, whose four-cheeked ass was soundly kicked in quick succession. For some reason, this led to the entire group of adversaries becoming suicidal; the clowns leapt into the lighthouse itself, whereas the blond midget and its tamer threw themselves into the sea below. Laughing their asses off, our heroes proceeded to steal the tyrant's private yacht and sail out to sea for a months-long cruise to a succession of islands whose natives had few, if any, sexual taboos.

Oh, and they also wanted to rescue the chick who the clowns had stolen. That too.

While they were off doing that, of course, the blond midget and its tamer miraculously washed up on a tiny floating island. Strangely enough, it was the exact same floating island on which dwelt the boy's sister, the old geezer, and the blue-haired prick from the first lighthouse. I mean, c'mon, how many floating islands can there be? Anyway, the group was overjoyed to be back together, at least until the floating island was swamped by a tidal wave and they all drowned.

Just kidding. There was another deus ex machina.

Miraculously avoiding injury, the three teens and the geezer washed up on an unfamiliar continent. Arriving at a nearby town devastated by the wave, they ignored the pleas of the townsfolk and the FEMA workers and joined the looters, searching specifically for a working boat so they could go light some lighthouses or whatever. Sadly, the townspeople practiced an ancient art of shipbuilding which rendered their boats invulnerable to damage from any source – with the exception of, you guessed it, _water_. Since the tidal wave had melted all their boats, the alleged heroes abandoned the town to its fate and headed south to seek a working ship.

After having many useless adventures involving an ancient monastery and the blatant thwarting of natural selecting in the case of two dim-witted children, the group made its way to another town on the southern edge of the continent. This town had recently come under attack by pirates, you see, so of course they were perfectly reasonable in letting three heavily-armed warriors, all of whom had spellcasting ability, into the town after only a cursory round of questioning. On the subject of natural selection, maybe there's a reason the continent had only two towns on it…

Anyway, this town had no boats in it either, so our heroes had to make do with visiting the few local landmarks, including a jail containing one particularly annoying blue-haired inmate who constantly whined about violations of his civil rights. The group pointed out to him that, since this was a medieval fantasy world, after all, the few civil rights he had were on the level of "the government cannot kill you unless it first proclaims you a heretic." After thus informing the prisoner, they decided, fuck it, they would head east onto yet _another_ continent to look for a boat… since, after all, this was a medieval fantasy world, and people had tremendous amounts of spare time while they sat around waiting for bubonic plague to kill them.

Crossing a desert, the heroes made their way to a small town which had also been devastated by the tidal wave – but which had a functional boat! The townspeople, all of whom by this point lived in FEMA trailers, begged the heroes to dispose of their evil mayor, who used the town's funds to buy oil from known pirates. Upon learning that the pirates had traded their oil for the boat, the group beat the crap out of them and tried to swipe it, only to learn that a big rock had fallen on its mast. Rather than, I dunno, _building a new mast_, the group once again decided, fuck it, we're gonna scour the continent for another working boat.

After getting lost in the desert, climbing a big pink rock, and messing around with nice, cuddly werewolves, the teens and their pet geezer returned to the first pirate-afflicted town, which had just suffered yet _another_ act of terrorism thanks to the blind eye they turned to illegal immigration. Hearing that the terrorists had stolen a shiny black thing, the heroes' undying love for shiny objects took them onto another continent, this time to the west. Outsmarting any number of dim-witted guards, they pursued the terrorists through a mountainous pass to their homeland.

Noticing that every man, woman, and child in this village carried a spear and a loincloth embroidered with the words "Death to the Great Satan," the heroes wisely decided to avoid a direct fight, instead joining forces with the escaped convict, who was also searching for the shiny object. Fortunately, the statue to which the terrorist tribe sacrificed the orb happened to be hollow… and about ten times as large inside as out… and the group was able to retrieve the shiny black orb, which turned out to be a fully functional cold-fusion reactor capable of powering, oh, I dunno, a _boat_. As luck would have it, the escaped convict had a boat on hand, and the heroes set off for the ocean.

The four teens and the accompanying geezer tried to sail to the western part of the world, where stood the other two lighthouses, but were stymied by a small, rocky object about three feet thick. Rather than blow through it with, I dunno, their ability to summon meteors and _deities_, the group gave up and sailed the eastern oceans aimlessly, having many pointless adventures such as saving a chick from a misogynistic dragon and exploring some ancient ruins. With absolutely no hints of where to go, they were on the verge of giving up until a higher power shelled out fifteen bucks for the official strategy guide and commanded them to search for the three prongs of some ancient trident or something. While they were doing this, of course, they miraculously managed to avoid running into the _other_ four teens, all of whom had by this point contracted an antibiotic-resistant case of something-or-other and decided to return to their quest.

Finally recovering all three pieces of the trident, the party had it put back together by an old hag who just so happened to be the grandmother of the pirate whose ass they had earlier kicked. With the trident, they were able to defeat the legendary sea monster Poseidon and enter the mythical land of Lemuria, whose resemblance to ancient Greece was strange considering how badly Greek mythology had just been raped. Anyway, in Lemuria, they finally learned that the lighthouses had to be lit to prevent the world from dying, thus finally giving their random wanderings a purpose! Anyway, they also received an ancient, mystical artifact that allowed them to effortlessly destroy the aforementioned three-foot-thick barrier and progress into the western ocean.

Upon entering the western ocean, the group proceeded to make landfall on two new continents, each of which had exactly one town of appreciable size, almost as though some cosmic Designer had gotten exceedingly lazy halfway through the- never mind. Our heroes faced xenophobia, misogyny, and horrible mistranslations (how the hell are American Indian warriors labeled _knights_?!) to recover yet another sacred artifact from a tribe before entering the third lighthouse… where they promptly encountered not only the other four heroes, but two more northern barbarian clowns and the blue-haired prick from earlier. Just like one happy little reunion… where everyone was trying to kill everyone else.

However it happened, all eight teens survived the confrontation atop the lighthouse, though their artifact was stolen and the beacon was lit. Being close to death – but, thanks to contrived plot events, not quite dead yet – they decided not to kill each other atop the lighthouse, but to meet in town and "talk things over," which each party correctly understood to mean kill the others _then_. After thoroughly booby-trapping the meeting site over the intervening night, each group made their way to the building after double-checking their concealed weapons and preparing a last will and testament. However, all these preparations turned out to be unnecessary after the red-haired boy got struck in the testicles by a spring-loaded iron rod trap, after which both parties laughed heartily, decided "you know what, these fuckers are alright," and joined forces to light the last lighthouse and save a bunch of people who were so totally killed by the big rock.

Okay, maybe I'm oversimplifying a bit. But that's about as long and intellectually solid as the dialog was.

Anyway, despite having two powerful fire-element spellcasters, the party was stymied by a big wall of ice to the north… and so, they ventured into an active volcano because, hey, it was there. Retrieving a small volcanic rock which apparently had the power to rape the laws of physics, they launched it from a cannon without the need for that pesky gunpowder, and shattered the wall of ice, allowing them to reach the homeland of the northern barbarian clowns. Fortunately for the heroes – who, as we recall, had killed two of the clowns' best warriors – the laid-back tribe's official motto was "Whatever," and they received a fairly warm welcome. After chilling with the clowns for a bit and giving all the pretty young barbarianesses their diseases, the heroes decided it was time for this dreary little saga to end… and so, they set off for the final lighthouse.

Exploring the lighthouse's interior, our heroes found a pair of dragons frozen inside a giant ice cube. As you or I would do in such a situation, assuming we had consumed a massive overdose of nonprescription medication, the party decided to free the dragons from the ice cube. The dragons, of course, immediately set on their saviors, intent on tearing them limb-from-limb and consuming their still-warm flesh. Happily, the dragons' asses were kicked. Sadly, though, while clowns may be proficient at climbing lighthouses, they are not very skilled at evading the judgment of a one-eyed glob of deus ex machina. That's right – the dragons were actually the clowns who had stolen the last artifact from the heroes! I'd never have guessed! Well… maybe not if the dragons had used different moves than the clowns… or if I hadn't seen clowns become dragons before… or if… ahhh, fuck it.

Chuckling and leaving the clowns to die, the party swiped the last artifact and headed to the top of the lighthouse, palpable relief filling their faces. They'd done it – by killing every carbon-based organism in a five-mile radius through the magic of random encounters, they'd eliminated all potential final bosses. The last lighthouse would be the easiest! They could light it without any confrontation! They-

Oh fuck.

As usual, an omnipotent deity figure materialized in front of them and uttered a few cryptic remarks about the world deserving to be destroyed. It also turned out that the blue-haired prick from earlier had been manipulating them all along. Everyone whined about the situation for a while until the deity got bored, threw a three-headed dragon at them, and left. Demonstrating the lovely prank-playing quality so common among deities (which has led to, among other things, Sudan), the dragon turned out to be a fusion of three of the heroes' parents. Thanks a lot, you divine prick.

Anyway, after the contrived final boss, the heroes stood around being angsty until one of them finally decided to, y'know, light the damn lighthouse. And, happily, the lighting of the aforementioned lighthouse miraculously resurrected the dead parents… thus defusing any and all emotion associated with the situation.

And thus our heroes returned home, having saved the world. But wait – what about the blue-haired prick? Having successfully manipulated the dim-witted heroes, he climbed the legendary mountain – which, by the way, was supposed to be an active volcano – and received the almighty power of the Golden Sun. And just when you thought there would be a real final boss, the series ended with a clusterfuck of deus ex machinas that left at least three plot threads unresolved.

As for the eight teens, they all lived happily ever after. At least until the cow-tipping incident.

To be continued…


	2. Cowtastrophe

One fine day in Vale, Bessie the cow stood in Farmer Joe's pasture, absentmindedly chewing her cud and staring off into space, much as she did every day. In fact, exactly as she did every day. By this point, Bessie had developed a standard routine of exactly 19,735 mastications of partially-digested grass before sundown – no more, no less. This allowed her to delegate such responsibilities to her subconscious mind, leaving her free to concentrate on whatever struck her fancy – today's choice being the finer points of superstring theory and its implications for the structure of the cosmos. As she stood there pondering n-dimensional manifolds, an old friend sidled up alongside her. 

"Hey there, " said Maurice the bull telepathically as he walked up to Bessie. "Whatcha up to?"

"I'm pondering n-dimensional manifolds. Didn't you read the last paragraph?" asked Bessie in reply.

"Oh. Sorry, " sighed Maurice, shaking his head. "Anyway… I've come to bring you some bad news."

"Joe wants to eat me?" gasped Bessie, horrified. Not at the prospect of actually being eaten, mind you, since she would abandon her physical host body before the slaughter, but at having to leave her earthbound friends and join the majority of cow civilization on the astral plane.

"No, I'm afraid it's something far more sinister," Maurice told her. "The Oracle has spoken. We must prepare for war."

"War?" cried Bessie. "You can't mean-"

"Indeed, " sighed Maurice. "Alchemy's release has altered the balance. The evil we sealed thirteen millennia ago will return to stalk Weyard once more tonight, released by the humans…"

"Then we have to raze the village to the ground!" exclaimed Bessie. "Leave not a single man, woman, or child alive! If Sardia is freed, it will spell doom for all of beings…"

Maurice shook his head. "You know we cannot interfere in the affairs of mortals. No, this is a battle humanity must fight on its own…"

The two cows stood there, gazing up at the hot afternoon sun. Yes, they would have to abandon Weyard, as they had so many other worlds. In less than a week, this sun would never rise again.

"Hey! Ya stupid bull, git!" roared Farmer Joe, clutching his pitchfork and charging at Maurice. "Ya can't mate with that cow, idgit! She ain't good for makin' calves no more!" Sighing, Maurice fled in mock fear of the farmer, leaving the stunned and incredulous Bessie staring at the sky. She knew Weyard would not exist much longer… but she was ignorant of the role she herself would play.

…

Isaac tiptoed towards the door, trying desperately not to step on the creaky floorboards. He stole a glance at his parents on the couch, but their snores reassured him that he was in no danger of being seen. In front of them, their porno was still playing silently, projected onto the wall in flickering light emanating from a Mars Djinni on the coffee table. Damn, the picture had gotten fuzzy again… Isaac made a mental note to adjust the reception on that thing sometime. The last thing he needed was a grainy image when he had groupies over… girls expected a famous hero to use only the best hardware. That reminded him, he had to make sure Mia was busy tomorrow night…

With a cry and a thud, Isaac slipped on his mom's cast-off nightgown and hit the ground face-first, just inches from the door. "Owww…" he moaned, forgetting about his slumbering parents. Damn, if he'd broken his nose again… Isaac shuddered as he envisioned the whips, chains, and inflatable sheep. He missed the days when Mia had operated on a more normal sexual-favors-for-healing plan… but then again, getting engaged had changed everything for the couple.

"Where do you think you're going, mister?" shrieked his mother from behind him. "It's one-thirty in the morning!" Isaac cringed, and wondered if he should even reply. If he just lay there, his mom might mistake him for debris. "I see you there, Isaac! You'd better not be trying to sneak off again!"

Sighing, Isaac got to his feet. Tonight was a lost cause. "Mom… I'm eighteen now, and engaged. And I saved the world, you know. I think it's time I got a little looser curfew."

"Oh, just because you saved the world, you expect me to just lift your curfew? You expect to be treated as some kind of… some kind of hero?" demanded his mother crossly.

Isaac blinked. "Um, yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Well, I've got news for you, buster!" cried Dora. "I saved the world too, you know, when I was a plucky young teenager, armed and full of hormones. But I didn't expect anything in return!"

Stifling a laugh, Isaac wiped the blood off his nose. "_You_ saved the world? From what, a pile of really smelly laundry?"

His mom shot him a death glare. "For your information, I was one of the six heroes who sealed the forbidden tome of Yaggug'noloth twenty years ago. _THE_ ancient tome of unholy pagan magick."

"C'mere, honey," mumbled Kyle half-asleep from elsewhere on the couch. "I'll show you _my_ forbidden magick…"

"Heh, really?" asked Isaac. "So that's what you call Dad's old boxer shorts? I saw you 'sealing' a couple of 'em in the hole out back the other day."

"You think you're so clever," spat Dora. "For your information, the book is real. Its incantations allow a mere mortal control over life and death themselves! Ask Kraden if you don't believe me."

"Kraden died last week, mom," said Isaac, puzzled by her shocked expression. "Didn't you hear? It was alchemy poisoning. Turns out earth and water react to form asbestos."

"That's… such a tragedy," wept his mother. "Poor man. Well… I hope the book fell into good hands. If anyone were to break the seal, it would spell certain doom for Weyard."

"Yeah, yeah," sighed Isaac. "Anyway, can I _please_ go out tonight? This is my last night of drinking with the guys before Piers heads back to Lemuria. We need to, y'know, give him a proper send-off."

Dora shrugged. On one hand, allowing her son out of her sight was a recipe for disaster. Last time she'd done so, he'd snuck into Sol Sanctum, and we all know how _that_ story ended. On the other hand, Kyle was waking up, and the Djinni's show was getting to the really good part. The sooner she got her child out of here, the better. "I guess so. Be sure to feed Billy before you go."

"Billy's still alive?" asked Isaac incredulously. "I haven't seen him in, like, six years…"

"You just haven't gone inside the upstairs closet, dear," his mother reminded him. "Now, hurry up and leave. The movie's getting to the part with Izumo and the kraken. I heard it gets into a girls' dorm."

Repressing the urge to be physically ill, Isaac sighed and made his way up the stairs. He guessed he should probably be thankful that it was so easy, but… eh. Something about rediscovering her "dead" husband after four years or so had re-energized his mother in ways he didn't particularly care to think about. After reaching the second floor of their house, Isaac took a right into his parents' bedroom and cautiously approached the closet. With one hand on his sheathed Sol Blade, Isaac tiptoed towards the door and gingerly turned the knob…

"BILLY!" thundered a powerful voice as something tore the door from its hinges and threw Isaac to the floor. Quickly rolling to the side to escape the hunched-over shape that sprung out of the closet, Isaac recognized the sight he'd been praying for the last six years never to see again… the hunchbacked midget, its cape fluttering in the air, the vivid green of its mohawk clashing with the beige ceiling… its jaws spread wide, ready for a killing bite…

"Hey! Billy, I, uh, brought you some nachos!" yelled Isaac, desperately climbing to his feet. The creature landed on the ground and cocked its head bemusedly, its larger eye searching Isaac's body for the promised nachos while its smaller eye sat in its socket and rolled around. Hoping that Billy was still as dumb as he'd been six years prior, Isaac snatched his mother's prized vase from the nearby nightstand and hurled it into the closet, where it broke with a resounding crash. Licking his lips, Billy bounded back into the closet, whereupon Isaac quickly grabbed the door and shoved it back up against the hole in the wall. Focusing his Psynergy, he fused the door with the wood of the house, trapping Billy in the closet once more.

"Whew," sighed Isaac, and he turned to walk back downstairs. For a severely inbred half-brother, Billy wasn't all that bad. He hadn't killed anyone yet, after all. Sure, there were the several near-fatal maulings that had hospitalized a couple of houseguests and gotten Billy confined to the upstairs closet, but… meh. Maybe Billy would mature enough to be let outside someday.

For now, Isaac pushed aside all other thoughts. This was going to be one hell of a night – although he didn't know just how literal that statement would soon become.

…

Half an hour later, Isaac and friends were ambling down Vale's notorious Drake Street, shooting the breeze, cracking jokes, and trying to avoid tripping over the drunks lying in the street. In the mere three months since the destruction of the first Vale (the hordes of cheap migrant laborers hired by the village elders had rebuilt the village at an astonishing pace – if you ignored the fact that the buildings had the structural integrity of Legos and often collapsed _as they were being built_), Drake Street had become famous as New Vale's hotspot of sin and vice. From basement gambling dens to houses of spectacularly ill repute, if it was weird, sleazy, or semi-legal, it flourished here. Naturally, our heroes found Drake Street a wonderful place to drink themselves into doing really dumb things.

Tonight, they were headed for a strip club called Baby Dolls, which had been recommended to them by Garet's sister, who had used to work there until her unfortunate pregnancy and subsequent back-alley abortion via Sol Blade. Felix was suspected to have been involved. Anyway, the club had a definite reputation that had spread through not only Vale, but most of central Angara – how many strip clubs, after all, have been condemned for their loose morals not only by the clergy, but also by a surprising 45 of local prostitutes? – and thus would be an excellent place to spend Piers' last night in Vale.

The club itself was located at the end of the street, past two popular taverns, Club Hydra and the Drunken Djinni Bar and Grill, which did not have a grill. Club Hydra was one of those trendy clubs where they served those posh Lemurian drinks that cost an arm and a leg and produced about as much actual inebriation as swallowing your own drool. For this reason (not the mention the insane cover charge), the Adepts preferred to frequent the Drunken Djinni, where patrons often blacked out from their drinks' fumes alone. More than once, Isaac had woken up in the nearby gutter, covered in blood that wasn't his, with a love note from someone named "Slice" in his pants pocket and a strange dog lapping up his spit puddle. Ahh, good times.

"Heh, dude, you won't believe some of the tricks those girls know," Garet told Piers as they ambled down the street, passing a gnome's corpse beneath a billboard for Phallium, the infamous lighthouse-shaped ED pill. As usual, the billboard loudly shrieked telepathically to passerby, advertising the wonders of its product. Garet sighed, used the Spamfilter Stone in his pocket to cast a protective Psynergy around the party, and continued on his way. "I accidentally saw my sister practicing this one time. I didn't know peoples' legs bent like that!"

"_Sure_ it was an accident, Garet," laughed Ivan, immediately ducking as Garet hurled an empty beer can at him. "Hey, man, I don't blame you. She's fine. Just ask Felix, am I right?"

A sheepish smile crossed Felix's face, and he turned away from Garet's gaze. "Um… whatever you say, Ivan."

"Don't lie, Felix," said Jenna tauntingly, holding Garet's arm. "Remember that bra I found in my bathroom? Mine don't have flowers on 'em." You might think that bringing your girlfriend to a strip club was a terrible idea, but Garet still clung to the hope that some theoretical amount of alcohol would bring out bi-curious tendencies in Jenna. Failing that, he was guaranteed to see at least one catfight.

Garet's eyes lit up, and he shoved aside Jenna to lunge at Felix. "You little motherfu-" But just before this work of fanfiction could contain serious profanity, he slipped on a discarded paper bag and fell to the street with a resounding thud. "Owww…"

"Guys, guys, break it up," said Isaac, helping Garet to his feet. "We don't need to worry about whose sister is sleeping with who. Or even whose sister is the village bicycle." He shot a knowing grin at Jenna, who blushed. If Felix had any inkling of their previous relationship… "We need to worry about getting really, really drunk, and _then_ we can be as rowdy and violent as we want. C'mon, Baby Dolls is right up ahead."

…

Despite Isaac's initial misgivings, he had to admit that Garet was right; the club was everything it was cracked up to be, and more. The six famous heroes sat on velvet VIP barstools just inches from the stage, where three voluptuous women gyrated around poles, performing unnatural acts with a live succubus. Lap dances came easily and booze flowed like a river – literally. Tonight there was only one corpse floating in the whiskey fountain that stood in the center of the bar… usually at least three patrons would try guzzling straight from the device and succumb to alcohol poisoning. All in all, it was looking like a pretty solid night. It looked like Piers was having fun – he'd have something to take back with him to Lemuria. Something besides Jenna's diseases, anyway.

"Yeah, baby! Woohoo!" yelled Garet, his gaze fixated on the stage, waving his arms in the air as only a drunken caveman can. "What'd I tell you, man? This place is awesome! Hey, Jenna, what'd I tell ya? Are you lovin' it yet?" Hearing no response, he managed to tear himself away from the performers for an instant and look at Jenna, who sat on the stool next to him, her arms crossed, scowling at the world. "C'mon, baby! Loosen up a bit! Here's a coin and a beer, get yourself a lap dance!"

Not even bothering to turn her head, Jenna snatched the beer from Garet's hand and threw it on his shirt. She kept her eyes focused on the performers on stage, reassuring herself by cataloguing every single one of their physical defects. The blonde had a mole on her left buttock, for instance. Also, the succubus's tail was asymmetrical… and Jenna suspected she probably had bad breath… and owed rent on her apartment. And she wouldn't survive repeated BLOWS TO THE HEAD WITH A FUCKING MACE.

Girls are funny like that.

"Aww, why'd you do that, baby?" asked Garet, looking down at the stain on his shirt. "Now I gotta clean this off…" Plus he had to pee. His eyes wandered, looking for a bathroom. No, that was the whiskey fountain. Couldn't contaminate the booze. No, that was the stage. Ah… over there. That looked exactly like the men's room sign. Dismounting his barstool, Garet managed to fall to the ground in a heap. "I'm… I'm okay, guys." Garet staggered to his feet and stumbled over to the object, whereupon he unzipped his fly and let loose.

"Um… ahem," said the object. Garet stared in awe at the talking men's room sign. Was it possible…? Did the magic of beer… no, wait. Uh-oh. That stick figure was too big to be the guy on the sign. And it was raising a blunt object menacingly. Garet quickly stopped urinating.

"That's a cop, you fucking dumbass," yelled Isaac from his barstool. The others were in tears with laughter.

"Whoa. Dude. Sorry, you… you kinda looked like the men's room sign," apologized Garet, zipping his fly and staggering backwards. "Uh… please don't hit me."

"The restrooms are that way," said the cop, sighing. Garet staggered over to the restrooms, did his business, and took off his shirt. Meh, it was a pretty good night so far, he thought as he ran it under the sink. Shame about Jenna, though. If he could get her to drink just one more beer, it might prove to be the magic one… and then maybe she'd climb up on stage… and…

"Kristy, we have a little problem here, m'kay?" came a voice from who-knows-where. Garet glanced around the men's room, searching for its origin… "We can't afford to have any girls that the audience doesn't like, m'kay?" It seemed to be coming from that air duct. There was no one else in the room. "Now, we've recently run some new demographic charts, and our customers just don't go for bluenettes. I think the actual business statistics bear me out, m'kay? In the past week, you've received only fifteen coins for lapdances. That's a new low for Baby Dolls, and frankly, I don't think we can tolerate that kind of performance, m'kay?"

"Uh… whatever," said a girl. Garet's ears perked up… there might be a chick on the other side of the wall! Somewhere nearby! And she might be naked! "So, are you, like, firing me or what?"

"Not quite," said the man. "Here at Baby Dolls, we don't do things that way, m'kay? The law mandates that we give big severance packages to fired employees, and we just can't afford to do that, m'kay? What I'm going to do is have you go out on stage one last time, m'kay?"

Forgetting about his shirt, Garet sprinted out of the bathroom towards the stage. Whoever that chick was, she sounded hot…

"I'm okay," he gasped. A running jump onto the barstool had _not_ been his brightest idea ever.

"Dude. Where's your shirt? You need to stop drinking, like right now," Isaac told him. "Remember last Friday? Did you like having your stomach pumped?"

"Uh… yeah," said Garet, regaining his balance. "Yeah, actually. After you cut me open with that sword, and all the stuff fell out, when Mia leaned over to close the hole, I kinda saw her boobs. It was awesome, man…" Isaac sighed and turned back to the stage…

Whoa, now there was a hottie. A hand popped out of the curtain and gave some sort of signal to the other dancers, who moved to the corners of the stage, leaving the succubus in the center. A pretty blue-haired stripper strolled out from behind the curtain… "Dude! She kinda looks like Mia!" yelled Garet. "Isaac, you should totally ask her for a… what the FU-"

As the stripper began to dance near the succubus, the demon's eyes lit up with a sinister glow of anticipation. Before her victim could even scream, the succubus grabbed her, unhinged her jaw, and bodily shoved the stripper headfirst down her gullet. There was an uncomfortable moment where the entire club suddenly grew very silent, as the stripper's legs stuck out from her mouth, slowly receding into her maw. Garet sat on his barstool, eyes wide open, in total shock…

The succubus swallowed and gazed intently at her stomach. A few bulges appeared and disappeared, along with a faint scream. Finally, she opened her mouth again, and spat the stripper's g-string onto the stage floor. The crowd erupted in wild applause, with even Jenna joining in. A few men tried to climb onstage to retrieve the underwear and had to be held back by bouncers. Smiling, the succubus picked up the g-string with her tail and flung it to Ivan, who caught and quickly pocketed it. It was to become his most prized possession.

"That… was… so hot," gasped Jenna. "Garet, you were right! This place kicks ass!" She glanced over at him. "Garet? Garet, you okay?"

"BLAUUURGH," replied Garet, emptying his innards onto the ground.

"That does it!" yelled a bouncer. "You guys, clear out. You've had your fun for tonight."

"But- but- what if you just throw him out?!" asked Isaac frantically. "I mean, we haven't been throwing up all over the- OH, GOD, IVAN, WHAT ARE YOU D- BLAUURGH!"

…

"Well. That didn't end well," sighed Isaac. The six Adepts leaned on a farmer's fence on Vale's outskirts, huffing and wheezing. They'd barely outrun that last batch of cops…

"Suit yourself," mumbled Garet, still visibly shaking. "I'm just glad to get away from that… that horrible THING…" He leaned on the fence with his left arm, fending off Jenna's advances with his right.

"Garet, c'mon! I'm… I'm ready to _do something!_" yelled Jenna manically. "You were right, that place was awesome!" She looked around frantically. "Hey! There's… a clump of bushes over there! You want to… y'know, go behind them? Just you and me?"

This reversal of the usual relationship dynamic didn't hold Isaac's interest for long. Yes, Jenna's turn-ons were unusual, but Isaac had seen enough of them over the years that they didn't faze him anymore. Likewise, watching Garet go at it with his ex wasn't exactly appealing. He was bored and drunk – a dangerous combination for any man, but doubly do in a group. "Ivan, Felix, Piers, whaddaya say we leave these lovebirds alone and go somewhere?" he asked.

Felix glanced back at the village. "Eh. Not yet. We should at least wait until they put out the fires." Behind him, Jenna dragged Garet away from the group.

Suddenly, she screamed. Something bluish-white had popped up from behind the bushes. "Hi guys!"

"Mia! You… you weren't spying on us, were you?" cried Jenna, shocked. "Because if you were, that's… wow. Hot."

"Nah," laughed Mia. "I just saw burning buildings and cops running everywhere. I figured you guys would be involved somehow, so I came out here to wait for you. How was your trip to the library?"

"The… library, right," said Isaac, trying to remember what lie he'd used this time. "Um… it was okay. We didn't find the book we were looking for."

"Book?" asked Mia, confused. "I thought you went there to find a scroll?" She sniffed the air, and Isaac knew he was busted. "Isaac! Have you been drinking?" she cried indignantly.

"Yeah…" he confessed. "It was Piers' last day in Vale. We had to do something special."

"And why didn't you invite me?" demanded Mia. "You know better than anyone that I can drink you under the table!"

Isaac shrugged. "Erm… guys' night out?" he asked weakly.

"Why was Jenna with you?" Mia asked.

"Garet dragged her along," Isaac told her. "He's, um, really, really whipped. See what she's doing to him?" He pointed to the bushes.

"Oh yeah," said Mia, mortified. "I didn't know spines bent that way." Felix, Ivan, and Piers edged away from the bushes.

"Anyway, we're done drinking for the night, honey," Isaac told her. "Getting chased by the cops kinda… you know… killed our enthusiasm."

"I'll bet," she said. Mia gazed at the burning village, then at the writhing forms of Garet and Jenna, then past the fence to where a lone cow stood in the moonlight. "So… what are you all up to now?"

"We're going to play it cool until the cops get tired of looking for us," answered Felix matter-of-factly. "Which basically means we have to sit here for a few hours."

"That's boring," sighed Mia. "Isaac, can't you think of anything to do? Something… exciting."

Deciding not to tell her how exciting the night had already been, Isaac racked his brains… going back to the village was out. It would be swarming with police. The events of the night had killed any libido he'd had, and besides, Mia wasn't in that kind of mood after seeing poor Garet bent out of shape. He had nothing interesting in his pockets, and… wait just a minute. "We could go cow-tipping!"

"Cow-tipping?" asked Mia. "What's that?"

"Oh yeah, you don't have cows in Imil," laughed Isaac. "It's… basically, when you go up to a sleeping cow and push it over. That's it."

Mia frowned. "What kind of a hick would have enough spare time to think up _that _activity?"

"My great-uncle Zeke," answered Felix. "He's won Most Distinguished Redneck twenty years in a row at the village fair."

"Eh. It's better than nothing," sighed Mia, studying the cow. "So… what? Do you have to just push it? Do you work in teams?"

"You usually need several people," said Isaac. "Don't worry, it's really simple once you get down to it. Felix, Piers, Ivan – wait, Ivan, never mind. Just… ignore us. Keep playing with that."

"Is that a _g-string_?" asked Mia incredulously.

"Dunno where he got that," lied Isaac. "Mia, guys, c'mon. Let's hop this fence and tip that cow!" This motion was met with shouts of agreement from the other drunken youths, and the group of four quickly hurdled the fence and approached the poor, sleeping bovine.

"See, there are many different schools of cow-tipping thought," explained Felix as they walked up to the cow. "Some people just get a crowd together and push in unison. They're pussies. Real men charge headfirst and shove 'er over." He took a running charge at the cow and, predictably, rebounded onto the grass, where he lay for several minutes, not sitting up.

"D'you think he's okay?" asked Piers, staring at Felix's twitching form.

"He'll be fine," Isaac told him dismissively. "C'mon, Piers, Mia, let's tip this thing. Line up and shove!"

The three Adepts cautiously approached the poor cow and braced themselves. Hands on the animal's sides, legs firmly pressed against the ground, they pushed in unison. "Heave-ho!" The cow wobbled a tiny bit, but remained firmly upright. "Again!" Still no tippage. "Damn! Push harder, guys!"

"This isn't working," sighed Mia, wiping the sweat off her brow. "Maybe it has to be on a hill…?"

Isaac gazed at the cow for a while. On one hand, it did make sense. On the other, Mia was a woman, and therefore wrong. "I've got it!" he cried, a brilliant idea seizing his drunken mind. "One of us has to get on the other side and _pull_!"

"That… doesn't make sense, Isaac," said Mia, shaking her head. "See, we can apply more force if-"

"Hey. Who's the experienced cow-tipper here?" asked Isaac. "Just pull on the cow. Jump out of the way when it starts to fall." He had to prove that he would be the one wearing the pants in this relationship. Their wedding was scarcely a month off, after all…

Mia sighed. She knew the futility of arguing with Isaac when he was drunk… the sooner she tried his idea and it failed, the sooner she could get on with her life. "Alright, Isaac. We'll do it your way." She walked around to the other side of the cow, grasped its skin firmly, and began to pull.

"Alright! Let's do this!" cried Isaac, and he and Piers shoved with all their might. Predictably, the cow didn't budge. Isaac's eyes narrowed. He couldn't let Mia prove him wrong. Not in a matter of such importance. He'd been around cows his whole life – he wasn't about to let some northerner prove him wrong. "HAAAAA!" Pushing with strength he didn't know he had, Isaac saw the cow wobble a little. He shoved harder. His feet began to sink into the ground. The cow leaned more. He almost had it! The cow was falling! He-

"WAAUUUGH!" cried Mia as the tremendous bulk of the startled bovine crushed her against the ground. "Auugh… gssp… ugh…" Her body writhed helplessly under the massive beast.

"Mia! Mia, are you alright? What happened to the plan?!" cried Isaac, rushing over to her. "You were supposed to jump out of the way! Mia!"

She'd stopped twitching. He knelt down next to her. "Mia… say something…" Her eyes were closed. "MIA!!!"

This wasn't supposed to happen…

To be continued…


	3. Fun with Paganism

"Time to face the facts, man. She's dead." 

Once they'd dragged the cow off her, Mia's corpse had acquired quite a crowd. The other six Adepts, along with an irate farmer and several policemen, stood at the scene of the accident. Sadly for our heroes, the police were more interested in issuing arrests than consoling the bereaved. Already the party had been charged with arson, resisting arrest, bovine vandalism, and negligent homicide. Garet and Jenna in particular were charged with indecent exposure; they stood around Mia's body with police blankets wrapped around their nude selves. A sobbing Isaac had thrown himself on the carcass of his beloved, which kind of hindered the policeman who was trying to draw a chalk outline around her. Well… that and the fact that chalk doesn't work on grass so well, but that didn't stop him from trying.

"We got a code 89-dash-5X," yelled one of the cops into his psyPhone. "Dead chick in a farmer's field." The handy gadgets communicated via Psynergy with one another anywhere on Weyard, in addition to playing really hideous hip-hop music loud enough to stun wildlife. "Say what? Yeah, she's got big hooters. Yeah. Keep 'er warm 'til the coroner shows up? Okay."

"So they can't sues me, right?" asked the farmer. "On account o' it were my cow?"

"Depends on their lawyer," sighed the chief of police. "Good news is, these hooligans are going straight to jail once we get this scene cleared up. I doubt they'll be suing anyone once Twelve-Inch Tony gets ahold of 'em."

"Twelve-Inch Tony?" asked Ivan, horrified.

"Folks call 'im the king of the county jail," laughed the chief. "Just do what he tells ya, or you'll end up deader than that chick." He glanced at Isaac and Mia. "Wow. What's that kid's problem?"

"Miiiiia! Come back!" wailed Isaac, desperately shaking her corpse. "Why?!"

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to get off the dead body," a policeman told Isaac. "Seriously. It looks really weird." Seeing no response, he kicked Isaac. "You a necro or something?" Isaac still didn't budge, so the cop turned towards the village and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey everyone! This kid's a necro!"

"Gssssap… urgh…" he added, falling to the ground in a bloody heap.

"Assaulting an officer," said one of the other cops, not missing a beat. "That's three felonies tonight, kid. Oh, and we're gonna need to take that sword as evidence."

Isaac got to his feet, holding his bloodied sword samurai-style, his rage-filled face making him look surprisingly badass in the moonlight. Well… badass for a drunken man who had just been crying like a pussy. Hell, the cops barely noticed his semi-dried tears as he methodically shredded them into Cop McNuggets, and by that point his face was so bloody that nobody could tell he'd been crying. The farmer, in fact, shat his pants at the sheer badassery of the situation, and had to flee bowlegged.

"Isaac… dude… you just killed like six cops," said Piers in awe. "That's… that's really bad, man. I think that's, like fifty years in jail…"

"We'll frame the farmer for it," Isaac told him matter-of-factly. "Garet, help me carry Mia. The rest of you, go back home. Get as far away from here as you can."

"Why? Where are we going?" asked Garet, picking up Mia's legs.

"I'll explain on the way," said Isaac, grabbing her shoulders. "I have an idea."

…

Kraden's shack had fallen into disrepair in the month since his death. Already in a bad part of Vale, the building seemed to have become a magnet for juvenile vandals. Huffing and puffing from the weight on their shoulders, Isaac and Garet still managed to snicker at the obscenities scrawled on its walls. The quality of hooliganism in Vale had really declined over the years; it was tough to mess up breaking a window, but the art of graffiti was much more demanding, and these particular vandals were obviously new at their craft. I mean, how do you misspell a four-letter word?

"Ooh. Dead chick." A man wearing a backwards baseball cap and a t-shirt bearing the words FREE DODONPA was staring at them from the steps of a nearby apartment building. "Tough break, man. I've got a dumpster out back if ya need it."

Ignoring the ghetto dweller, Isaac advanced to Kraden's front door and kicked it in. His nose immediately wrinkled upon entering the building… even with Kraden's skeleton lying right there on the sofa (the results of the Vale police force's rather laissze-faire attitude towards dead bodies), he hadn't expected the place to stink so badly. Maybe it was the countless half-eaten boxes of self-cooking Dragon McNuggets strewn amidst the filth. Of filth, there was plenty – one-use intoxication scrolls, wrappers from various alchemy components, Djinn droppings, old issues of _Wet Hooters_, and empty bottles of Phallium. What appeared to be a signed poster of the succubus at Baby Dolls hung on the wall. Garet shuddered reflexively.

Squinting, Isaac looked for doors beyond the piles of refuse. "Garet, do you remember where his library was?" he asked. "Wasn't it in the back?"

Garet sighed. "No idea. I never visited him. But… don't you think he'd have tried to hide the book? If it were such a valuable artifact and all?"

"Nah. Kraden knows nobody in Vale reads," Isaac told him. "The library would be the safest place to put it. Here, you hold Mia for a sec… I'm gonna check that door." Heaving her corpse onto Garet's shoulders, Isaac stepped gingerly over the festering garbage on the floor and turned the knob. He immediately wished he hadn't; the stench that assailed him was an order of magnitude worse than that from the living room. "Oh god! Kraden, you asshole, why didn't you flush before you died?!"

Slamming the door shut, Isaac repressed the urge to throw up and made his way to another door. The instant his hand touched the knob, it broke off and landed on his foot. Screaming profanities, Isaac hopped around the room on his other leg, eventually landing in a wet pile of… something… with a nice, healthy squish. As if to add insult to injury, the door swung open, seemingly of its own accord, revealing Kraden's bedroom. Damn, that wasn't it…

Only one door left. Muttering curse words to himself, Isaac turned the knob, and… success! Row after row of bookshelves appeared in the gloomy, windowless chamber. He stepped into the library and soon realized he had no idea what the forbidden tome looked like. He thought of calling his mother to ask, but remembered that the police were probably questioning his parents. Damn. How was he going to find the book of Yaggug'noloth…?

Sighing, he walked over to the nearest bookshelf to begin his search. _Alchemy for Dummies…Transmutations Made Easy… Build your own Homunculus… _no, that shelf was all alchemy books. _D&D Player's Handbook… Dungeon Master's Guide…_ no. _Atlas Shrugged…_nope. _NAMBLA newsletter… Loving a Geezer: One Schoolboy's Story…_ he wasn't touching those with a ten-foot pole.

"Hey, Isaac, I found something!" Hearing Garet's voice, he stuck his head out of the door. "Dude! Under the couch!" Isaac raced over to see Garet's find…

"It's a summoning tablet," said Isaac, puzzled. "Why would he have one of these? Hang on… there are words written on it." He stared at the ancient runes, trying to decipher them… for once, that class back at Vale High was paying off. "Um… 'Banished from this world is the Unholy Book. If you would call it back, break the seal with the name of the Studmuffin.' Garet, I think this is it!"

"There's an ancient rune for 'studmuffin'?" asked Garet incredulously.

"I… think," said Isaac. "Yeah. There's no other translation. But who's it referring to?" He stared at the slate for a second… "Kraden?" he asked uncertainly. The object did not respond. "Damn. He was an egomaniac like that… I figured it'd be him."

"Unless it wasn't Kraden who made this," suggested Garet. "Your mom said she sealed away the book, right? Maybe…"

"Oh gods no," said Isaac. "I think I know what-"

"Kyle?" suggested Garet. All at once, the earth began to rumble. A high-pitched whine erupted from the tablet, shattering what few windows remained unbroken… the runes on the tablet blazed blood-red… and in a terrific blast of light, the object disintegrated.

Isaac and Garet blinked. "What was that all about?" Looking around the room, neither boy could discern that anything had changed. "Where's the book…?"

Something very heavy materialized directly above Isaac's skull. A moment later, it was not a happy skull. Isaac collapsed to the ground unconscious, landing face-first in a carton of Dragon McNuggets. "Isaac! Hey, you found the book!"

…

"Where… where am I…?"

Mia gazed at her new surroundings. Clouds, halos, the whole deal. Frankly, she was kind of disappointed. The pure-white robe she was wearing didn't accentuate her bust nearly as well as her normal garments, and the halo felt heavier than she'd thought it would. Plus her wings made her look fat. She knew this because she was staring directly at a large reflective surface – specifically, a big silver wheel labeled "Reincarnation."

"I think you know where you are," boomed a thunderous voice from above, causing Mia to jump with audible surprise. Damn… that stain was going to be hard to get out of a white robe. She hoped they had good bleach up here.

"Heaven?" asked Mia timidly.

"No shit," said the voice. "Why does everyone always ask that? You've got the clouds, you've got the halo, should be obvious where you are. I thought I'd made you squishy pink things a little brighter than that. Man, you guys are even dumber than the angels. I was talking to this angel Imianaba the other day, and she-"

"So you're God?" inquired Mia.

"Did you just interrupt me?!" demanded the voice. "I'm God, you fool!" Mia turned pale and shrank back towards the wheel. "Heh, great. Means you've finally grown some fucking balls."

Mia felt an odd bulge in her pants, as though she'd – oh no. "Wh-what just-"

"Just kidding," laughed God, and the bulge vanished. "I get a kick out of taking things literally." Mia could do little but stare up at the sky. "But, hey, I like you, so I'm gonna make a little deal with you. You want to make a deal?"

"Does it involve… eternal happiness?" asked Mia. "That's what this place is about, right?"

"Ah, not yet," said God. "Otherwise I'd have sent you to that big cloud up there. That's freshman orientation. Nah, I'm gonna give you a second chance at life. I've still got a bit of a purpose for you."

Mia's heart skipped a beat. "So… so you're resurrecting me? I'll get to be with Isaac?!" she cried. "Thank you, God!"

"Heh. Not quite," laughed God. "You see that wheel there? Give 'er a spin."

"Reincarnation?" asked Mia, puzzled. "But… why can't I have my old body back?"

"You'll see in a bit," God told her. "It's why I'm sending you back. This is gonna be great entertainment."

"W-what?" she cried. "What is?"

God chuckled. "Can't tell you. That'd spoil the suspense. Spin the wheel, please."

Sighing, Mia looked at the Wheel of Reincarnation. The markings on its sides were almost microscopic… and yet she could read each one perfectly. B-list celebrity… robot… pig… third-world HIV-positive baby… cannibal… plankton… "Do I really have to spin this? Can't I, you know, choose one?"

"You kidding me? If I start letting people choose, I'll have people lining up left and right to reincarnate as… I dunno, lingerie," said God. "Nah. Gotta do things randomly." Mia sighed. "Spin the damn wheel already."

Slowly, hesitantly, Mia approached the wheel's handle. Pulling with all her might, she set it spinning… and watched in terrified anticipation as the arrow passed such unsavory choices as earthworm, prostitute, and Congressman. The wheel began to slow… Mia's eyes widened… God started laughing…

And suddenly it stopped. "Lucky little bitch!" yelled God.

"What?! Why?!" cried Mia, panicked.

"You landed on lingerie," explained God. "I haven't seen that happen in thirteen thousand years. Talk about beginner's luck…"

"What? I'm… I'm going to be-" stammered Mia.

"Thanks for spinning the Wheel of Reincarnation," said God. "See you later…"

In a dizzying rush of color, Mia felt herself being drawn elsewhere…

…

"Dude, are you awake yet?" Isaac felt a sharp pain in his side… he forced his eyes open and saw Garet standing above him, kicking his torso. "It was just a book, you pussy. C'mon, wake up."

Isaac slowly sat up. "Ungh… how long was I out?" He gazed at his surroundings. Not only had Garet cleared out all the piles of filth, but he'd also torn down Kraden's shack and all surrounding buildings for at least a mile. Either that or they were outdoors.

"Long enough," sighed Garet. "I had to carry both of you out of Vale. Some jerkoff called the cops when we summoned the book."

Isaac gazed up at the full moon… and then down at the corpse of his beloved. Beautiful even in death, Mia lay on the grass, her eyes… wait, fuck that. There was no way he was going to let this turn into an angst fic. Besides, the candles and the pentagram around her body totally killed the mood. "Looks like you got things started…"

"Yeah," said Garet, picking the book up off the ground. "I've got the circle laid out. Now all we need are the incantations and the sacrifice." It was an ancient tome, bound in what appeared to be human skin, written in a language whose letters seemed to shift as they were viewed. Isaac found that he could somehow understand the strange shapes, though he'd never seen them before. The tome was still open to a page about halfway through, which displayed a blood-red pentagram labeled "Figure 5."

"Sacrifice?!" asked Isaac, his eyes widening.

"Well… y'know, this is a book of _unholy pagan magick_," sighed Garet. "We're calling on demons here. Look, here's one." He flipped through a few pages, finally showing Isaac an illustration of a demonic being…

"She's got big hooters," observed Isaac. The strange woman intrigued him. Perhaps it was her voluptuous figure… or her seductive smile… or the bloody skull she was gnawing on. Ah well.

"Yeah," said Garet. "The book says that it's a picture of Sardia, the queen of death. Supposedly this is the one we're calling on."

"So what do we have to sacrifice?" asked Isaac. He hoped it was something easy. Seeing his fiancée lying dead under the moonlight, her beautiful face appearing almost alive in the soft white glow, it was getting harder and harder to stave off angst.

Garet flipped back a few pages, read a few paragraphs, and frowned. "It doesn't say, really. Something about the sacrifice being on a cosmic scale."

"Less work for us!" said Isaac enthusiastically. "So all we have to do is read some words?"

"Yeah," replied Garet, handing the book to Isaac. "Here, you say the incantation. I don't want to get involved in this stuff."

"You built the circle," protested Isaac, pushing the book back. "C'mon, man. I'm sure Sardia appreciates men who finish the job."

"Nah. I want to keep my soul," Garet told him, shoving the book into his hands. "Besides, Mia is your fiancée."

Isaac couldn't argue with that. It'd certainly be romantic for him to be the one to revive her, and it might even cancel out his culpability for her death. Taking the book from Garet, he focused on the strange shapes…

_This is the greatest of magicks – that which juxtaposes life and nonlife. Break the veil between the two with the aid of Sardia, but be warned… the greatest magick carries the greatest price. Proceed if you believe a cosmic sacrifice be worthwhile…_

Wow. Pretty heavy stuff. But in the end, who gave a shit? Never in his life had Isaac encountered a problem that couldn't be hacked, slashed, or summon-rushed away. Whatever price the ritual carried couldn't be _that_ bad. So, with a glance at Mia, he began reading from the book…

"_Imanuar fritin'zareth shiznizzit das'kul…_

_Xalucath nan'zal famicom supernintendo…_

_Uru lashtarga durkadurka Sardia…"_

One by one, the candles' flames turned pitch-black, seeming to suck all light out of the area… save for the eerie glow of the lines of the pentagram. Isaac trembled a little, but kept reading.

"_Ejar renol iskalon zakum…_

_J'thaul bongwautr herpecin…_

_Snaep kells dumbelldarr…_

_Xenu tomkruz al'ienkult…"_

Mia's corpse began to tremble… no, the very ground beneath his feet was shaking! The stars in the sky twinkled faster, as though with anticipation… Isaac gulped and kept reading.

"_Nozdrul schisama burritogrande…_

_Exp'licat conten tno'tsutable forminors…_

_Sardia! Sardia, broab mis kaol'zu!_

_Sardia! Yspuse'a secksi tym!_

_SARDIA!"_

With a shrieking roar that seemed to reverberate across Weyard, a fountain of light erupted beneath Mia, engulfing her body. Dropping the book with a cry, Isaac leapt behind a nearby rock and peeked over the top… something was rising in the shining column. Mia's body rose into the sky… and suddenly something burst forth from the earth, trailing darkness in its wake, and circled her limply-hanging form. In one gargantuan flash of light, it entered her body.

Isaac blinked. The rock was now gone. So was all the grass for what seemed like miles. Where the summoning circle had been was now the epicenter of a deep crater… and lying at its center was a blue-white figure, its body shuddering as it drew breath. "Mia!" he cried, racing towards it. "Mia, are you alright?!" Isaac knelt down next to her and turned her onto her back. "Mia!"

She blinked a few times, and opened her eyes. Gradually her new body's senses came to her… the blurry figure standing above her resolved into a brown-haired man, yelling frantically. She subtly licked her lips. This one looked delicious. "Hello, Isaac."

…

Panting heavily, Jenna shut the door to her room. That had been one lucky escape… she could've sworn the third patrol would've gotten her. For once she was thankful for her irritable bowel syndrome, although she'd never seen it asphyxiate someone before. She shuddered to think what tonight's total body count was. She'd seen Isaac take down those six cops… and then she herself had left at least four dead… and then there was poor Mia.

Now that the night's excitement was over, though, Jenna could finally get some rest. Yawning, she undressed herself and flung the clothes into a corner. She'd pick them up tomorrow… after all, what else did she have to do now that Piers was leaving? Or more accurately, who else? There was always Garet, but after tonight's performance failure, she was seriously considering switching back to her old friend Isaac. He could always use some sympathy sex, right? The difficulty would be prying him away from Mia's corpse. She shuddered to imagine what his plans were.

As Jenna strolled over to her bed, she could've sworn she heard a muffled yell. Yeah… there it was again. And it was coming from over there… her clothes drawers. Better not be another stalker, she thought with a sigh. If Garet's brother Aaron was stealing her panties again…

Jenna pulled the top drawer open. Nothing in there but bras… no midget stalkers. As she was about to close it, a familiar voice cried out to her. It couldn't be. No. She was hearing things.

"Jenna! Oh, thank God! It's me, M-"

Jenna slammed the drawer shut and walked quickly over to her bed. This was _not_ happening. One night's sleep and she'd be fine…

To be continued…


	4. In Which People Are Eaten

Chapter Three: In Which People Are Eaten

"I can feel it. The prophesied Chosen One is behind this door."

Maurice and Bessie stood in Dora's bedroom, staring at the closet in awe. A mere hour previous, the elders of their race had begun the great migration off of Weyard's doomed surface… and now that Sardia had been given mortal form, they were the last two cows on Weyard, tasked with bringing the humans their final hope.

Slowly, cautiously, Maurice tapped his hoof against the closet door, which turned to dust at his command. The cows gazed into the darkness, looking for the one who would become Weyard's last- "BILLY!"

Shrieking its name, a small creature leapt out from the closet, landing on all fours in front of the cows. Maurice and Bessie gazed in wonder at the unlikely form taken by the Chosen One… hunchbacked, three feet tall at most, and with such an atrocious hairstyle. Even cows know that mohawks haven't been hip for at least a decade now, honestly. Billy snarled at Maurice and Bessie, his larger eye focused on their necks…

Reluctantly, Maurice knelt down before Billy. "O great Chosen One, our time of need has come. The bane of all beings has been unsealed. Sardia the accursed, she whose gravity-defying bosom points the way to damnation, walks among us, seeking to devour all that lives. We beseech thee, Chosen One, to aid us against her. No force but yours can match – eh?"

A rapidly-spreading puddle of drool from beneath Billy's mouth had reached Maurice's hooves. Grinning sinisterly, Billy gazed upwards at Maurice and Bessie, a hungry gleam in his eyes. "_Nachos._"

…

Jenna had barely closed her eyes and begun to think sweet thoughts of hawt Isaac-on-Garet when joyous screams filled the house. Something about Isaac? Or Mia? She groggily sat up and blinked. If Felix had been cutting his wrists again, she was going to let him die. But the voice didn't sound like Felix. Who was paying a visit at this time of night…?

Her question answered itself when something large thudded against the door. "Doorknob, Garet…" sighed Jenna. Almost a minute of unsuccessful fumbling later, Garet had managed to somehow tear the door off its hinges and toss it into the hallway. She really hoped he hadn't gotten her pregnant tonight. Who would want to take care of _that_ kid?

Grinning like an idiot, Garet stumbled into the room. "Jenna! Jenna, you'll never believe what happened! Mia's alive!" Something thumped inside her dresser.

She stared at him and blinked a few times. "Garet, if this is some kind of sick joke…" You just didn't crack jokes like that about the recently-deceased. Instead, you removed their major organs to ensure that they'd never return to life and ruin your dating prospects. Granted, she'd just made that rule up, but if what Garet was saying were true…

"It's not, it's not! We resurrected her with unholy pagan magick!" he cried. "She's downstairs, come see!" Garet gestured frantically at the door before actually looking at it and noticing the damage. "Oh. Um… I'll pay for that. But c'mon, I'll show you!"

"Unholy pagan magick?" frowned Jenna skeptically, climbing out of bed. "Like with… demons?"

"Uh… yup," said Garet. "This one, actually." He opened the Tome of Yaggug'noloth to the page showing Sardia, and immediately a cold wind blew out all the lights in the room. This was surprising, considering they were electric.

Jenna snapped her fingers, and immediately Garet's tunic ignited. "Aaaagh! The hell did you do _that_ for?!" he cried, flailing about. She snatched the book from him and began to read it in the now-ample illumination. Spells for demon summoning… soul-stealing… partial-birth abortion… yup, this was definitely an evil tome, alright. She turned the page, coming to the resurrection spell, which had an illustration…

"_This_ demon, Garet?" asked Jenna jealously, staring at Sardia's curvaceous form. It was just like that pig Garet to enlist the aid of such a… such a… How the hell did she maintain that figure?! Jenna counted at least six skulls on the ground beside the demoness and began mentally tallying how many calories that would be… probably at least double Jenna's daily intake of two salads and a breath mint…

With a splashing sound, the light went dim, and Jenna turned around to see Isaac and Mia standing behind her over Garet's twitching body, now soaking wet. "Oh, hey Mia! I kinda needed him to stay on fire," giggled Jenna, quickly hiding the book behind her back. "How was… y'know, being dead?"

Mia smiled strangely. "Not bad all, Jenna." Something about her toothy grin unnerved Jenna… she was staring at her hungrily, like Garet at one of the plumper rodents in his basement. "How's… life?"

"Pretty good," said Jenna, kicking Garet in the shins as he lay prone. "Just disciplining this oaf here. So… you're alive now? For good? There's… no chance the magick will wear off or anything?" she asked hopefully.

Mia shook her head. "I'm fine, Jenna. As long as this guy doesn't push another cow onto me." She elbowed Isaac in the ribs, and immediately he slumped to the ground, eyes glazed over. "Whoops."

"Isaac! Dude, you alright?" asked Garet, crawling over to him.

"He's… um, fine," said Mia, hurriedly kneeling down next to Isaac and casting Ply. It wouldn't do to have him die at this particular moment… she still had uses for this one. Besides, she hadn't gotten any action in eons. "There, all better."

Dazed, Isaac stood back up. "Ungh… didn't know I was so tired. What a night…"

"I'll say," yawned Jenna. What a disappointing ending to an otherwise wonderful night. "So, is there any chance of you guys leaving so I can get some sleep?"

"Uh… sure. Isaac and I have things to do, don't we?" said Mia, smiling naughtily. Isaac nodded. "And I'm sure Garet needs his rest too." She kicked him in the shins for the hell of it.

As the Adepts said their goodbyes, nobody noticed the feeble thumping noises coming from Jenna's dresser. _My… my body has been resurrected? But how…? And who's controlling it…?_

…

"Oh, James, it's magnificent!" cried Sara. The little cabin stood in the midst of a clearing in the woods, the moonlight giving it a wonderfully cozy look… assuming one ignored the sheets of human skin crudely tacked to the walls, which our drunken teens did. Their arms locked, the amorous couple ambled towards their new rendezvous. "This'll be the perfect place! How did you ever find it?"

"It was built by one of the original counselors," James told her. "After he died of mysterious organ disappearances, only a few campers remembered where it was. It's been passed down year after year as the perfect spot to… have a little fun." He kissed Sara, who giggled. The booze was definitely working tonight. Add that to the romantic atmosphere of the cabin and the cheap earrings he'd bought for her, and…

"Wait," whispered Sara. They were at the cabin's threshold now… James sighed internally. Why did women always bail out at the last moment? "Isn't this place where the triplets died a few years back?"

James shook his head. "No. Different cabin. Totally different."

"I'm pretty sure this is it," Sara told him. "Look, there are three skulls on the windowsill."

He glanced at the window. "Hmm. So there are."

"Why aren't you scared?!" demanded Sara, clutching him tightly. "How can you be so… so brave? It's… hot!"

James just smiled. "It's who I am, baby." He had nothing to worry about, right? Sure, the triplets had died four years ago, and those counselors before them… and their body parts had been turned into tasteful modern art and mailed to their parents… but a group of vigilante campers had hunted down the murderer and finished him off in a complex scheme involving bananas and paint thinner. Camp Meetgrindur hadn't had any problems since. Laughing nonchalantly, James opened the creaky front door and led Sara into the cabin. "Look, they even cleaned up the blood."

With a flick of his wrist, James ignited the pile of firewood he'd placed in the fireplace last night, and led Sara over to the bed in the corner. The couple sat down… and, aided by the romantic firelight, got to doing what teenage campers do best.

"Wait," whispered Sara a few minutes later, jerking back and staring out the window. "Did you hear that?"

Truth be told, James hadn't heard much of anything, having been preoccupied with removing Sara's clothing. Her chastity belt used one of those newfangled digital locking systems, which had been a real pain to disable. "It's nothing, baby. Just the wind," he told her reassuringly.

"Oh… okay," said Sara softly, trying to be brave. She resumed kissing James, but couldn't shake the idea that they were being watched…

There! He had the bra off! James' lustful eyes wandered down towards Sara's exposed-

"JAAAAMES! Someone's outside!" shrieked Sara. "It- it's watching us!"

Annoyed, James turned his gaze away from her luscious bosom and stared out the window. Nothing but trees… "It's your imagination, honey," he told her, trying not to let his irritation show. Were all virgins this jumpy, he wondered? He absentmindedly fidgeted with the unopened bottle of roofies in his pocket and reminded himself to never listen to his conscience again.

A flash of lightning momentarily blinded the couple, and as their vision returned, they saw the door was open. James' pulse quickened, and Sara screamed. "It's… it's just the wind!" cried James, as much to reassure himself as Sara…

Both teenagers scooted backwards, pressing up against the wall, and Sara hastily covered her chest with the covers. Whatever Sara had seen might be in the cabin by now… they glanced around frantically, trying to spot it before-

With a resounding clang, the darkened silhouette of the interloper violently rebounded off of a hanging saucepan and fell onto the ground. Still attempting to look mysterious and threatening, the figure clutched its head in one hand and made vaguely menacing flailing motions with the rest of its body. It was spared further embarrassment by a sudden downpour, which came down the chimney and extinguished the fire, plunging the cabin into darkness.

Almost a minute passed as the teens waited in abject terror… and then came another flash of lightning. A woman's silhouette became visible, right next to the bed. The couple screamed as she pounced on them… but their cries were lost in the vast forest surrounding the remote cabin.

The teenagers' bones wouldn't be found until the next morning, when a counselor made the trek to the cabin to retrieve his hidden stash of ganja. For her part, their assailant left silently into the night, licking her lips. Only a single blue hair lingered at the scene…

…

The morning sun rose in the east, as it is wont to do, and with its rising broke rosy-red Dawn, who was immediately carted off to the emergency room. As the first rays of sunlight reached Vale, the new day found our heroes clustered around a table at the Vault Vittles Diner, stuffing themselves with artery-clogging breakfast foods from VV's famous Bucket o' Grease.

"C'mon, Piers, you have to eat _something_," urged Isaac. "It's a long trip to Lemuria, and Jenna's not going to be there to cook for you."

Piers halfheartedly gazed into the large metal bucket – any lesser material would soon be saturated with grease and collapse – sitting in the center of the table. Various unidentifiable shapes, all deep-fried, bobbed in a sea of lukewarm grease, which was giving off a serious stench as bubbles of dubious origin rose to the surface. The net effect was about as appetizing as watching a stray dog become violently ill on one's shoes, and not a dog which had been eating healthily, either.

Grease splashed onto Piers's face as Garet reached in and grabbed an irregularly-shaped lump of something-or-other. "More for us," he laughed, inspecting his catch. After visual identification failed, he popped the object in his mouth. "Mmph. Chicken wing."

"Mia's not eating either," Ivan pointed out, poking at what looked like a deep-fried sausage patty, from which a small, wriggling tentacle was protruding. "Yuck. I don't think this one is healthy." Garet snagged it anyway.

"I'm not hungry," said Mia, reclining in her chair. "Big dinner last night, and all that." Satisfied by this explanation, the others turned back to the bucket. While they were distracted, Mia discreetly coughed up an earring.

"C'mon, Piers. You love bacon," Jenna told him, fishing out a soggy strip from the bucket. He took it reluctantly, and began to slowly nibble on the end. "Oh, please. Last Tuesday you ate that bac-ini off me in like five seconds." Garet and Felix simultaneously shot Piers dirty looks.

"You were both out of town," said Piers sheepishly, shrinking into his chair. Jenna batted her eyelashes innocently.

With a gurgling noise, a stream of grease suddenly ate a hole in the bucket's wall and spilled out onto the table, carrying with it a deep-fried bill. This trick never failed to impress the diner's customers, who frequently overpaid for their meal, as it's hard to read a piece of paper that's been fried. "They want us out of here already?" asked Felix, depositing a stack of counterfeit coins atop the bill. With any luck, the grease would eat into them enough that they'd be indistinguishable from the real thing.

The seven Adepts stood up and left the diner, walking a few blocks past cheap motels and abandoned buildings to Vale's city limits, where Piers' ship bobbed in the nearby river. A serious stench assailed their already grease-ridden nostrils as they approached… "Hey! Looks like it worked!" laughed Piers.

The party climbed up the ship's ladder and walked towards the front door, gingerly stepping over the moldering corpses of at least a dozen local children. Affixed to the ship above the front door was an ancient and mighty weapon, called by the Lemurians a GAU-8 minigun, which seemed to follow the Adepts as they walked. "Insert Black Orb to disable security system," beeped a strange voice as Piers touched the door. "Ten seconds until firing sequence."

Piers rummaged around in his pockets, and a worried expression crossed his face. "Um, guys? Who had the orb?" The party glanced at one another, and then up at the gun, which was beeping ominously.

Garet's face turned red. "I _knew_ that wasn't a jawbreaker."

"Unauthorized intrusion! Unauthorized intrusion!" blared the ship's security system. The Adepts dove for cover as the gun began spraying the area with bullets, and in a million-to-one coincidence, one of the shots ricocheted off the ship's hull, Ivan's femur, one of the dead kids, and Ivan's sternum before striking the gun's ammo belt and causing a massive explosion that took out the door.

When the smoke cleared, Piers stood up and surveyed the damage. "You owe me a new security system, asshole," he snarled at Ivan.

"…" responded Ivan wittily, lying on the ground twitching and bleeding. Felix poked him with a stick.

"This ship's not going anywhere without that orb," sighed Isaac. "Piers, you might have to stick around in Vale until Garet passes it." Jenna did a little hip-centric dance of lasciviousness.

"How the hell am I going to stop those damn kids from getting in now?" grumbled Piers, still looking at the door's wreckage.

"Um…" said Isaac, thinking. "Well, see those trees over there? Grab your sword, chop 'em down, learn woodworking…" – he tossed Piers a book – "and build a new door. And a gun. Out of wood. Meanwhile, the rest of us are gonna go watch trashy shows on the Djinn-o-Vision."

Isaac and the others departed, leaving Ivan and Piers on the deck of the ship. Sighing, Piers halfheartedly flipped through the book, then glanced at Ivan. It looked like you could make _wonderful_ doorknobs out of human bone.

…

"You got stuck in the latrine _again?!_" demanded the guard, tugging on Sheba's legs. With a resounding _pop_, her upper torso was freed from the crude outhouse, and she fell to the floor. "The hell was your head doing in there this time?"

"I… uh, I dropped a coin…" lied Sheba, wiping unsavory substances off of her face. The truth, that older inmates had shoved her in headfirst as they did every day, was simply too embarrassing to admit. It hadn't been so bad until one of the girls had hit upon the bright idea of charging other inmates money to spank the defenseless Sheba, an activity which now accounted for the majority of the prison's GDP.

The guard sighed. "This's been happening every day for the past… what, three weeks? You're not terribly bright, are you?" Sheba shook her head. "Ah well. Better in here than out on the streets, makin' another generation of crack-baby moon people…"

Sheba's eyes narrowed. "What did you just say?!"

"Ya heard me. Prison's all you moonies will ever be good for," laughed the guard. "Next time I'm shoving you _in_."

"We Anemos are a proud people!" roared Sheba. "Your insults will not stand!" The guard nonchalantly reached into his pockets, pulled out a confiscated shiv, and flicked it at Sheba. The lightning she discharged an instant later arced to the metal shiv, off some pipes on the ceiling, then to the puddle Sheba was standing in. To add insult to injury, although the shiv missed her as she fell to the ground, it bounced off the wall and promptly embedded itself in her back.

"Face it. You'll always be a wuss," sighed the guard, kicking her twitching body in the shins. "Just stay outta the way of Twelve-Inch Tony and Bigger Bertha, become someone's prison bitch, and you're set for life." Laughing sadly, the guard walked out of the bathroom, leaving Sheba to her misery.

It wasn't fair, she thought as she wept onto the grimy floor. Why hadn't she been born strong like Garet or smart like Isaac? Or hot like Mia, or slutty like Jenna, or with a figure like Ivan's? If it had been Garet who'd tackled that mascot, he'd have ended up just fine. The mascot would've stayed down, not brutally beaten Sheba to a pulp in front of the whole stadium, and he'd have been left with a cool story to tell, not a ten-year jail term…

Sheba cried out in pain as the door whacked against her head. "Oh! Sheba, I am sorry, I did not know you were there!" A violet-haired girl stepped into the bathroom, extending her hand to Sheba and helping her to her feet. "Your ass was kicked again, yes?"

"Yeah…" sighed Sheba, leaning against the sink for support. It promptly gave way, and she fell to the floor again, with the basin landing atop her head. "Unnghh… just leave me here, Feizhi. I… I'm so worthless…"

"Do not say that," Feizhi told her, shaking her head. "You are not a warrior, but you are a wonderful cell-mate. You do not fart like my last one." An idea suddenly struck her as she felt a lump in her pocket. "Oh! I remember now! Here is something for you."

"What is it…?" asked Sheba, pulling her head out from under the sink and slowly staggering to her feet. Feizhi handed her a letter of some sort… "Huh? The… the Psynergy Rangers Fan Club? But I sent away for that like… five years ago…" Sheba opened the envelope, and as she delicately fingered the enclosed ID card, something about the image of her head crudely pasted onto the Yellow Psynergy Ranger's body awakened the old emotions in her… "I _will_ be a badass!" she cried to no one in particular. "I… I am Psy Yellow!"

Suddenly the door swung open, thwacking Feizhi into the wall. In the poor prison lighting, Sheba could barely see a dark silhouette striding through the door… the two hundred pounds of muscle better known as the dreaded Bigger Bertha. "Hey!" thundered the behemoth. "Get outta here, pipsqueaks!"

"My name…" snarled Sheba, "…is PSY YELLOW!" Quick as lightning, she leapt into the air in the badass martial-arts stance she remembered from the show, and delivered a vicious flying kick to Bertha's face. For her part, Bigger Bertha simply yawned and let the hapless adolescent fly down her throat. "Waaaaugh!"

Feizhi stood perfectly still as the giantess sat down, trying to look like just another part of the wall. She was certainly having poor luck with cellmates. Hopefully the next one wouldn't be quite so… pitiful.

…

Isaac's eyes glazed over as the wonderfully mind-numbing violence of modern DV soothed his weary soul. Today's episode of Ultimate Warrior Xtreme, a montage of Colosso bloopers, amateur monster-hunting, and gory police footage, was shaping up to be at least one of his top five. Hell, he didn't even notice his mother until she kicked the poor Djinni halfway across the room, with deleterious effects on picture quality. "-to me when I'm talking to you!" cried Dora.

Keeping his eyes focused on where the picture had been, Isaac sighed the common sigh of teenagers everywhere, punctuated with a single moronic grunt. "What?"

"I asked you if you knew where Billy went," said his mother. "There's a cow skull upstairs and my vase is missing." Trying to avoid her gaze, Garet stealthily inched towards the Djinni, which lay twitching on the ground.

"Have you actually_looked_ in the closet yet?" asked Isaac, not making eye contact. A loud yelp rang out as Garet's foot was caught in a mouse trap and he fell face-first onto the Djinni.

Dora shook her head. "I planned to make you do that. Do you know how many droppings are in there?" Choking, Garet pulled his mouth off the ground and spat the Djinni onto the floor.

Isaac sighed again. "Tell you what. You check the closet, and if he's not there, I'll track him down after the show." Dora nodded and walked upstairs. "That takes care of her. Garet, did you just…"

"Not intentionally…" he coughed. "Man, those things taste nasty." Gingerly picking up the twitching Djinni, he placed it back on the table and began to adjust the picture.

"Just a sec, guys," said Isaac, getting up from his chair and placing his hand on the wall. Focusing the earth Psynergy he had honed to legendary levels in his travels, he reached out through the wooden house and animated the closet's door frame, bending it into a series of planks that trapped his mother inside. "There we go. What'd I miss?"

"These guys are fighting a dragon," Felix said, pointing at the screen, where four youths stood brandishing swords, their faces contorted in trousers-fouling terror, as a large and irate red dragon swooped down towards them. "Freaking amateurs, man. Oh wow, that's gotta hurt."

In the time it took Isaac to sit down, the number of youths plummeted from four to three and a half to two and an arm. "Hey, where'd Mia go?" he asked. Garet, Felix, and Jenna shrugged. "Huh. Maybe she's in the bathr- YES! Her top came off!" The Adepts hooted with laughter as a young woman's shirt got caught on the dragon's teeth, exposing just a glimpse of nipple as she slid down the dragon's gullet.

"Can't believe they let 'em show nudity on DV," laughed Felix as the sole remaining fighter's head was forcibly removed from his body and the camera zoomed in for a close-up. "This show kicks ass."

Isaac tried to focus, but the show suddenly cut to slow-motion footage of a Colosso warrior fumbling his sword and severing an intimate organ. Howling with laughter, he pushed his thoughts of Mia's whereabouts out of his mind. What's the worst she could be up to?

To be continued…


End file.
